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‘Heart-Flower’ Bookmark for Valentine’s Day

Express loving sentiments through papercraft.

By Maria Chatzi

This project shows you how make a heart-flower Valentine's Day (or simply Love) bookmark — an easy paper craft for children of all ages (see bonus lesson for teachers and parents at the end of the project).

a piece of organza ribbon, any length you prefer; mine is 17 inches long (it should be about 2 inches longer if you want to tie it into a bow), color: any red

pencil

a ball point pen or a marker, color: black or blue

glue

scissors

hole puncher for paper

Instructions:

1 Fold both the red craft paper and the smaller white paper in half, lengthwise. Use your pencil to draw one half of a heart along the folded side on each paper.

2 Cut out these hearts with your scissors (see fig 1) and unfold the two paper hearts (the white heart is a little smaller than the red one).

3 Glue the red heart on the upper part of the wide and thick paper strip.

4 Punch a hole in the space left at the top, and tie your ribbon through it (if your ribbon is long enough you can make a bow). Use your scissors to trim the ribbon, if necessary.

(For steps 3 and 4, see fig 2.)

5 Continue by gluing the white heart on top of the red one (see fig 3).

6 Take the small green piece of paper and cut out a leaf with your scissors.

7 Make a stem for your heart-flower, by gluing the narrow, dark green strip from the point of the heart downwards, to the lower end of your bookmark. Trim the stem at the bottom, if needed. Wait for the glue to harden.

8 After gluing the stem, glue the green leaf on it, close to the heart-flower. Wait for the glue to dry.

Your Heart-Flower Bookmark is ready to place in one of your books or offer to someone you love.

Bonus Lesson for Teachers and Parents

10 If you are a teacher, or a parent actively involved in your kid’s learning, Valentine’s Day is a good opportunity to discuss the importance of caring for our fellow humans and loving each other. If you wish to do this, add this final tenth step to your Valentine Bookmark craft (see fig 6).

Ask the kids to point out some nice things one can do to express feelings of love towards other people in the family, friends and classmates. You may need to add some more to the list yourself, to help the discussion go further.

When the discussion is over, you could turn this craft into a follow-up activity.

AIf you’re a teacher, tell the children your class is going to make a “LOVE YOU” garland, as a joint activity. Ask kids to think of a person they love (except their mom and dad). After that, ask them to think of why they love that person. Tell them to write the word “because” in the leaf and then write the reason they love that person for. The reason should be written vertically, in parallel to the stem (on one side of it, as shown in fig 6).

Examples of a reason for loving someone are: “you are funny” , or “you share your toys” or “you never shout” or “ you play with me.” Help kids identify the reason and express themselves clearly. Try to keep the answers short. It’s up to you to decide whether answers like “because you’re my friend” or “because you’re grandpa” go into the list.

When they've all written their reason, have them turn their bookmarks over, to the back side, and write their name.

After they’ve finished, explain that it doesn’t have to be Valentine’s Day to offer a gift of love to people. Tell them that after the school year is over they are going to get their bookmark to offer it to the person they had in mind when making it. Then, hang all the bookmarks on a string from one side of the classroom to the other, making the “LOVE YOU” garland.

B If you’re a parent, repeat the same process, with the only difference that, depending on the number of kids you’re crafting with, each kid may need to make more than one bookmarks (for more than one people they love). You need to make bookmarks for at least five people, for a short “LOVE YOU” garland. Use the garland to decorate your kitchen, a wall mirror, the fireplace or the entrance hall — not decorating a child’s room with it gives the little ones the feeling the garland belongs to all. This could also be a great party activity, to keep small hands busy.

Tip

You could string (or tie) paper hearts between the bookmarks to make the garland longer.